


Tide Line

by the_moonmoth



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-10
Updated: 2010-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 12:19:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/124753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_moonmoth/pseuds/the_moonmoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seventy-five percent of Earth's surface is water. Perhaps that is why its inhabitants are so turbulent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tide Line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bibliokat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bibliokat).



> Written for **bibliokat** for the prompt _Spock & Bones talking about Kirk_. Huge thanks to **anon_j_anon** for an insightful beta. Any mistakes remaining are my own. Concrit is welcome.

"And breathe in."

Spock inhales, the skin of his back becoming taut against the cool metal disk. He has had many physicals in his life, and yet has never seen a device quite like this before.

"What is the advantage of this stethoscope, Doctor?" he enquires, intrigued. Its archaic design seems at odds with the cutting edge technology available in the Enterprise's sickbay.

Doctor McCoy makes a sound that may be an irritated grunt or may be a chuckle – Spock has found it unusually difficult to distinguish between the two with this individual. "The advantage, Mr. Spock, is that I can hear for myself with my own two ears instead of putting my trust in some over-complicated piece of technology that might fail at a moment's notice due to some unfathomable whim of its own."

Ah. Doctor McCoy is referring to the incident two days ago in which a junior doctor woke him in the middle of the night after a double shift because the osteoregenerator had malfunctioned and Doctor Grant had been unable to devise a substitute treatment for a broken metatarsal.

"We're too reliant on technology in medicine these day," McCoy continues, picking up his PADD. "Basic skills are getting lost."

"But you are continuing to practice these techniques," Spock observes. "Most logical, Doctor."

McCoy looks vaguely surprised for a moment before recovering a more typical sardonic expression. "Glad you approve." He taps at his PADD for a moment before frowning and looking back up at Spock. "Your grey cell levels are slightly suppressed, and your blood pressure's at the high end of what I'm told is normal for you."

"Is it a cause for concern?"

McCoy purses his lips. "It indicates stress, Spock. Anything you want to talk about?"

Spock considers. "Four weeks ago my planet was destroyed," he says. "Since then I have done little but file reports, submit to debriefings, and see to the execution of my mother's will. It is only five days since we left space dock: I am simply tired."

McCoy continues to frown at him. "How long are Vulcans meant to sleep for, anyway? "

"Four hours per circadian cycle is generally considered sufficient, along with regular meditation."

"And have you been getting that?"

Spock pauses. It is against the teachings of Surak to indulge in falsehoods, and yet he is reluctant to confide this information in Doctor McCoy.

"I have not," he finally admits.

Spock is profoundly grateful that McCoy does not enquire as to why. Instead, he walks to the replicator and returns a moment later with a hypospray, holding it out for Spock to take.

"Mild relaxant," he says in response to Spock's raised eyebrow. "It'll help you sleep." He looks uncharacteristically sympathetic for a moment. "Don't do a Jim on me, okay? If you need it, use it." His face reconfigures itself into a more natural expression of ominous medical intent. "I'll be checking up on you."

Spock nods. He pulls his uniform shirts back on, shaking off the chill of the Enterprise's standard air temperature, picks up the hypospray, and bids Doctor McCoy good day.

He passes the captain on his way out, coming for his own physical. He engages in exchanging the bare minimum of pleasantries before being able to continue to the bridge, though he can sense Kirk's eyes following him to the door.

*

Spock sits on the edge of his bed with the hypospray in his hands. He has just spent the previous thirty minutes attempting to enter a meditative state – unsuccessfully. He is aware that he lacks the necessary focus because he is so greatly in need of sleep. And yet he finds he does not want to utilize Doctor McCoy's sedative.

It is irrational to be afraid of one's own subconscious. Nevertheless the images his mind throws to the surface in the middle of the night are deeply disturbing to him. He remembers the nightmares of his childhood, the raw emotion and the vivid images, the way he clung to his mother when she woke him from them, drawing in safety from her cool skin. It is something his father never understood – most Vulcans were able to command their subconscious sufficiently well by Spock's age to suppress all dreaming. His disappointment in Spock's inability to do so was always painfully evident. Even now, it is a skill Spock has yet to master.

And what if he takes the drug and dreams, and is unable to awaken? Fear is an emotional response often triggered by the unknown. Spock does not know, and he is afraid.

This will not do. He is a Vulcan; he will suppress all emotion. Fear is illogical. He simply needs sleep, and then to meditate.

He presses the hypospray to his neck, lies back on the bed, and closes his eyes.

*

There are – were – no oceans on Vulcan; there was barely any surface water at all. In Shi'Khar it rained once every ten years and the desert city would bloom for a week or so before the flowers died in the intense heat and the plants curled back in on themselves.

There was water here once, his mother explained, so long ago that Vulcans weren't really even Vulcans yet.

Where did it go? Spock asked her.

Under the ground, she said. Hiding. Waiting.

For what?

For the Vulcans. The ground kept it sheltered from the sun, so that it would still be there for the Vulcans to use for hundreds of thousands of years to come.

That is why Shi'Kahr is built here! he realized, completely forgetting to point out how illogical it was to attribute intent to geological objects. Because of the water table!

His mother smiled, and knelt down beside him so that they were eye to eye. He always felt warm when she did this, because it meant she was going to speak to him of something personal. It was not something his father ever did.

Vulcan appears red from space, but Earth appears blue. Can you work out why?

The realization came suddenly like a sand viper striking its prey. Because it's covered in water, he said, his voice quiet with reverence at the notion.

Yes, she said, and he knew from the smile that spread across her face that she was proud of him. Seventy-five percent of Earth's surface is water.

Will I see it, one day?

Oh, yes, Spock. When you grow up, you can go see anything you want.

I will still go to Earth first.

His mother reached out and ran a hand down the back of his head, stroking his hair, her smile softening slightly. Then she straightened and turned. Come on, she said, let's go home and look up about oceans on the nets.

*

He wakes two hours later, sweating, one hand clenched so tightly in the pillow that his tendons ache as he slowly releases his grip. He feels groggy, blinking heavily in the darkness.

"Lights," he calls and sits up, vision swimming for a moment before equilibrium is restored – the drug is still in his system. He cannot go to sickbay for a remedy without incurring questions he does not wish to answer, and he will not go back to sleep. The only option, then, is to aid his body's ability to metabolize the sedative.

Spock stumbles across his quarters to the closet, pulling out clothing suitable for vigorous exercise, and heads for the gym.

He has been on the treadmill for half an hour when Captain Kirk enters. He smiles and waves at Spock in greeting, and though Spock had intended to continue his workout, he immediately discontinues the machine's program and returns directly to his quarters.

*

Despite his childhood research and his mother's reminiscences, nothing would have been able to prepare Spock for his first encounter with Earth's seemingly endless water. Waiting at space dock for the shuttle that would take him down to the surface, he had found the planet to be extremely pleasing in aesthetics, but a day later, standing on China Beach with the Academy campus and the Golden Gate Bridge still in view, his own reaction was entirely unanticipated.

He had arrived on Earth at the start of the northern hemisphere's winter, and the biting wind whipped the waves up as they crashed into the beach, spray stinging his skin like shards of glass. The noise was tremendous, a deep booming that seemed to resonate in his bones, the raw power of this natural process unlike anything Spock had previously experienced. He stood at the bottom of the steps leading onto the beach, unable to move forward and closer to the tide's edge, but refusing to follow the irrational instinct to retreat to higher ground. He stood at the bottom of the steps, heart pounding, a deep tremor in his body that he could not control.

I am a Vulcan. I will suppress all emotion. Fear is an illogical response to the unknown. This will not do; I am a Vulcan.

(When you grow up, you can go see anything you want.)

Spock remained on the beach until precisely ten minutes had passed, then with carefully measured steps, returned to his dorm.

The following day he returned, and the day following that, and though he found that he was never able to fully control his body's physiological response to that expanse of latent energy, he simply could not keep away.

*

Spock would like to ask Nyota her opinion on the significance of the imagery in his dreams. There is little information on this aspect of psychology in the Vulcan literature, and what there is consists primarily of methods for suppression and control. Spock has, at some time in his life, tried all of them. The Human literature provides such a wealth of contradictory information as to be equally uninformative. But Nyota had once told him that she often enjoyed the fantastical nature and intricate narratives of her dreams, and he would value her insight on his own.

Nyota, however, has not approached him in a social setting since he ended their brief romantic attachment on returning to Earth after the Narada incident, and he is unsure as to whether their previous friendship remains intact. He will not press her simply for his own sake.

Kirk would – no.

*

Despite meditative suppression, all the techniques for control he had learnt in his youth, the acknowledgement that the response was illogical and subsequent attempts to overcome it – despite all this, Spock knew that he feared the sea, and was fascinated by both his fear and the source of it.

There was a command track cadet in the Kobayashi Maru test – Spock observed many such cadets during the exam period, but this one persisted in the memory. He sat rigidly, hands clenched over the arms of the command chair, a level of focus Humans rarely seemed capable of. Perhaps it was the vivid blue of his eyes, so like the shallow seas around the bay, or perhaps the quality he seemed to possess of energy beneath the surface, of being in motion while appearing perfectly still – Spock could not be sure. But he could not help but draw the comparison, done almost subconsciously as he looked down on the simulation from the observation deck. And once made it could not be unmade, and all the illogical associations that went with it.

Later, after a second test, a third, an academic hearing and everything that followed, Spock would question how he had failed to realize just how strong the undertow was.

(Will I see it, one day?

Oh, yes, Spock.)

*

Spock reports to sickbay as instructed by the terse message left by Doctor McCoy on his personal terminal, but when he arrives the doctor is nowhere in sight. He stands for a moment, listening: the various beeps of the sickbay equipment, the soft rush of the atmospheric cycling system, the distant rumble of the ship's engines, and the clink of glass. This last comes from the direction of McCoy's small office and so Spock follows it.

McCoy is sitting behind his desk, a glass before him filled with an unidentified beverage. "Sit down," he says without preamble when he notices Spock.

"I would prefer to stand," Spock replies stiffly.

"So you can escape more easily?" McCoy asks, but his tone suggests it is a rhetorical question. He picks up the glass, swirling the amber liquid inside so that it climbs the edges of its vessel, before raising it to his mouth and taking a sip. He sighs softly and his whole body relaxes.

"Fascinating," Spock observes. "May I assume that that is not synthehol?"

"Assume away," McCoy says, "but if you report me to the authorities I'll have you in a medically induced coma faster than you can say live long and prosper."

Spock raises an eyebrow. "Noted, Doctor."

"Damn right," McCoy says. "Look, will you just sit down? It's been a long day and you're giving me a crick in the neck."

Spock hesitates, then inclines his head and seats himself in the chair opposite McCoy. "You wished to see me," he prompts.

"I warned you I'd be checking up on you. How are you sleeping? Any better?"

"Negative."

"Used any of the hypos?"

"One. It was... ineffective."

"I see. You want to talk about it?"

"I do not understand your meaning, Doctor," Spock says tightly. McCoy's eyes bore into him, radiating skepticism.

"There's not one member of this crew who hasn't been through some personal trauma or other in the last month," he says. "Everyone knows someone who didn't come back from Vulcan. But you lost your mother, Spock, not to mention your entire _planet_. Now some people are coping with it by throwing themselves into their work, and some by killing themselves in the gym, and some by drinking too much whiskey, but if there's one thing I can guarantee you it's that not one person on this ship has slept well since we warped into that graveyard. I know you Vulcans like to pretend it's all smooth sailing even when the ship's about to sink, but I also know you're half Human." He stops for a moment, takes another sip of his drink, and when he returns the glass to the desk he suddenly looks very tired. "I was on the bridge when you went after Jim," he says quietly, "I _know_ you're hurting. So I'll say it again: do you want to talk about it?"

It is Spock's intention to politely decline and return to his quarters. It is beyond him, then, why the words that come out are, "I have been having nightmares."

McCoy looks faintly relieved for a moment before nodding. "Go on."

"Your analogy was strangely apt, Doctor – I have been dreaming about the sea."

*

After the destruction of the Narada and their return to Earth, Spock went back to China Beach. It was summer, the water still and calm, waves lapping gently at the sand – he had seen it many times thus. Walking away from the steps, he stood at the tide line, marked by seaweed, and watched.

The tide was going out, the water quietly approaching, retreating, approaching again, but getting ever further away. Some water sank into the sand, out of sight but leaving its mark, staining the yellow-gold to darker brown.

Spock stood with his hands behind his back and stared out at the water, and for the first time felt nothing in response. As though his emotions, too, had sunk out of sight.

(Where did it go?

Under the ground. Hiding. Waiting.)

*

"It is never the same twice, though certain themes are ubiquitous. There are always waves, for example, and they are always several meters in amplitude. Sometimes I am simply watching from a precarious position such as a beach or cliff top. Other times I must navigate over the waves in some sort of archaic sailing vessel. Twice I have been cast adrift and forced to swim to safety, but with no shore in sight.

"Usually, I wake as a wave crests over my head, but there have been times... I was not previously aware that the body could simulate the physiological effects of a dream, however there have been times, recently, when I have awoken and been unable to breath, as though my lungs were filled with water. A most unpleasant sensation, I can assure you, Doctor. I usually find that, after such an experience, my desire for sleep is somewhat curtailed."

McCoy looks thoughtful. "You're all at sea," he says. "How poetic."

Spock frowns. "You are referring to the human idiom, 'to be at sea' – to feel lost, confused or bewildered. I do not think any of those descriptors-"

"Oh save it, Spock. I'm your physician, I'm not going to _tell_ anyone. Now, this is how I see it. For whatever reason, your ridiculously complicated Vulcan brain has fixated on the idea of the sea as a way of expressing all the turmoil and badly suppressed emotion you've been going through in the last few weeks. Your instinct is to suppress and try to get away from it, because that's what you've been taught, but maybe you need to meet this thing head on."

"Can you elaborate, Doctor? To what 'thing' are you referring?"

"Whatever it is that's bothering you, and hell, I know you've got a potential list as long as your arm."

Spock considers this, turns it in his mind to examine it from all angles. "Your suggestion is not without merit," he allows after several seconds of contemplative silence. "My usual methods have been thus far unsuccessful – attempting an alternative approach is the logical next step."

McCoy nods, satisfied, and leans back in his chair. "You know," he says, seemingly apropos of nothing, "Jim told me about your alternate self. Apparently he said you two were destined for some great friendship for the ages."

Spock feels his jaw tighten involuntarily, his back stiffen. "It was at his suggestion that I decided to remain as part of the Enterprise's crew," he says obliquely.

McCoy picks up his glass, swilling the liquid, watching it intently. "Jim also told me you've turned him down for dinner no less than five times since we shipped out. Seems like a funny way to go about laying the found-"

"Do you have a point, Doctor?" Spock asks crisply.

McCoy's eyes lift to meet his, sharp. "You tell me."

*

Seventy-five percent of Earth's surface is water. Perhaps that is why its inhabitants are so turbulent. Spock stands at the entrance to the gym and watches, unseen.

Kirk and Sulu stand facing each other on the sparring mats, poised to fight. Both men are covered in a fine sheen of sweat, but where Sulu flexes his knees, bouncing lightly in place, Kirk is perfectly still.

Spock can see the movement coming, though, the latent energy, like watching the wave build before it crests. Moments later, Kirk strikes. Sulu's reflexes are good for a Human, and he manages to block the blow. The men enter into an exchange and Spock is caught for a few minutes in the ebb and flow of it.

Even now he can feel it, that tug towards, that hidden undertow. He has known Kirk less than two months – nothing would have been able to prepare Spock for this feeling, like recognition, like something fundamental. His reaction is entirely unanticipated. Fear is an emotional response often triggered by the unknown, but he is a Vulcan; he will suppress all emotion. And yet, he cannot keep away.

(Seventy-five percent of Earth's surface is water.

I will still go to Earth first.)

They bow when they are done and Spock steps forward, nodding to Sulu as the lieutenant throws his towel over his shoulder and heads for the door.

"Spock," Kirk says, grinning. "Come to take me on?"

"No, Captain."

"What, no rematch? I swear I won't go easy on you this time."

"Indeed, I would not require you to." Spock clasps his hands behind his back. The doctor had suggested 'meeting this thing head on'. It is the logical next step, but it is also a simple fact that he cannot continue as he has been. "In fact, I have come to apologize."

"For what?" Kirk asks, and it sounds uncharacteristically tentative.

"I have been avoiding something, and in the process have been avoiding you. This is not an appropriate beginning to either a professional relationship or a friendship. I hope you will forgive my illogic." The universe as Spock knows it has altered irreparably in recent weeks – perhaps it is only logical that he, too, should change.

"Spock," Jim says, "we've been through a lot. Even you're allowed to be a little illogical about it, if you feel like it." Spock raises an eyebrow, but accepts the sentiment without comment. "So, dinner?" Jim asks.

In his mind, there is the distant roaring of waves. "That would be acceptable," Spock says, and steps over the tide line.


End file.
